Love is not a light switch!

I don’t know what is wrong with me. I have loved many times in my life. I have given my heart away too many times to count. And yet, here I am, still professing to believe in love. I was having a discussion recently with a very close friend; we were talking about love. It seemed to me that he thought love was something besides what I think it is, and I told him so:

Love is not a light switch!

After I said it, I had two thoughts: 1) Damn, Cali! That was profound! And 2) that would make a good blog! Sorry, that’s just how my mind works….. I think I really hit on something there:

Love is not a light switch.

I have a long list of people who have come into my life and then gone away, either by choice or by chance. Some of them hurt me quite badly at the time of their leaving. I can honestly say, though, that I still love them.

Love is not a light switch.

I had the hard measles when I was nine months old. By the time I was covered with red spots and it was diagnosed, the damage to my eyes had already been done. My pupils are always dilated…look at my pictures, you’ll see. If I turn on the overhead light in my kitchen, the light pierces my eyes like a knife. I can only stop the pain by turning off the light.

Love is not a light switch.

Okay, I know I am belaboring the point, sorry! I have been hurt by love, and it has pierced me just as the bright light pierces my eyes. Turning off the light makes my eyes feel better. It does absolutely nothing for my heart. Only time can heal a broken heart.

Please don’t be sad. This is not about sad. This is about a realization I had today: love has brought me a lot more joy than pain. In the case of one man I loved, it brought me three children. With the rest, the benefits were more intangible. But they were definitely there, and they were joyous, too.

I have known the pain of having my love rejected, too. I was told that I would be able to “get over him” only by getting really mad at him. I tried mad and I failed. All it did was hurt him and make me feel awful. And so, I apologized. And I walked away from that awful place. He is still in my heart; I couldn’t get angry at him for the same reasons that I fell in love with him, and filled my psyche? Was I not raised “properly”? Or do I just have an unending capacity to love others? Or is it simply because love is not a light switch?

I guess this is true: What the heart has once owned and had, it shall never lose.~ Henry Ward Beecher

That’s what I’m thinkin’ anyway!